


Where the Green Grass Grows

by yourlocalai



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Magic Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:16:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlocalai/pseuds/yourlocalai
Summary: The first time Gwaine heard the name Freya was long before he ever learned of Merlin’s magic.Turns out, jealousy is not something he is adept at dealing with.





	Where the Green Grass Grows

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note to start off: please note the dubious consent tag paired with the explicit rating, if you think that's something you'd rather avoid reading about.

The first time Gwaine heard the name Freya was long before he ever learned of Merlin’s magic.

Arthur and his merry band of misfits—or Knights of the Round Table, as Merlin liked to call them—had just returned from their first round of real, pitched combat against King Bayard’s men. The fighting had lasted for three days, and it had been bloody.

Gwaine was no stranger to violence, and he had a feeling Merlin wasn’t either, but he knew that seeing violence and taking part in it, especially on so large a scale, were two different beasts entirely. But Merlin had insisted on coming with them, standing resolute at Arthur’s side with a sword in hand until they finally gave in.

Gwaine had thought it a mistake then and he thought it one now, watching Merlin wander the camp like a wraith, picking up chores like his life depended on digging latrines and pitching tents.

His bravado had deserted him, so Gwaine thought he might offer some of his own.

Instead he ended up in a tent with Merlin sobbing into his shoulder. Drunk and trembling like a baby bird, Gwaine held him through the worst of it, until his sobs had dwindled to tears and the heavy silence of a man with no words left in him at all.

Merlin kissed him that night, and of all the ways Gwaine had imagined it happening (and there were many), desperate and sad and wrong hadn’t been one of them. But Gwaine kissed him back because he was weak where Merlin was concerned, and because he thought that if he poured enough of his heart into it he might turn this disaster into something beautiful.

It was just after he broke the kiss that Merlin said it, lips pressed against his neck.

“Freya would have liked you.”

He fell asleep with his head still resting on Gwaine’s shoulder and remembered nothing of the night come morning, but the name stuck with Gwaine. The way Merlin said it told him two things: that this Freya was important to him, and that she was dead.

He never brought it up, seeing no reason to dredge up painful memories based on a sentence Merlin couldn’t even remember uttering. Within a few weeks, he’d pushed it entirely out of his mind.

Until years later, when Freya herself spoke to him.

* * *

Merlin was talking to a woman in a waterfall.

Merlin had always done strange things, but Gwaine thought they might seem less strange now that his magic was a known explanation. Instead he was only growing stranger.

The woman was dressed in white, brown hair cascading around her shoulders and framing a painfully young face. She was also completely dry, a fact that struck Gwaine as odd until he realized that she wasn’t in the waterfall, she _was_ the waterfall.

Her image was imperfect, distorted where the flow of the water had broken and filled with air. There was no change in the waterfall with any of her movements, no sense that her arm or head might break through at any moment. She was flat, an illuminated manuscript brought to life.

Merlin was smiling at her.

Gwaine wasn’t a jealous man. He couldn’t afford to be when the things that were his didn’t stay his for long, but seeing his lover smile at this beautiful, _magical _woman made something ugly and vicious curl tight around his heart.

He stepped into the clearing, and Merlin’s smile didn’t change at all when he caught sight of Gwaine.

“Gwaine!” he called, running up to him and grabbing his hand. “Come here, I want you to meet someone.” He held a hand out towards the magical waterfall woman, a Lord introducing his Lady. “Gwaine, this is Freya. Freya, Gwaine.”

_Freya. _A woman whose name he’d heard only once, but had never forgotten because he was physically incapable of forgetting the things that were important to Merlin. A woman he’d assumed was dead.

To be fair, he wasn’t entirely sure if she counted as alive either.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sir Gwaine. Merlin’s told me a lot about you.”

Even her voice was lovely, soft and gentle. He slid his hand out of Merlin’s and wrapped it around his waist. “The pleasure is mine, My Lady.”

She laughed, bright and bell-like. “Please, call me Freya.”

Freya was tiny, her reflection reaching only to Gwaine’s shoulder, but standing there watching the fondness grow on Merlin’s face with every word she spoke, it was Gwaine who felt small.

* * *

Later, after a conversation filled with talk of places he’d never been and magic he could never do, he had Merlin spread out face down on their bed, breathless gasps leaving him with every thrust of Gwaine’s fingers.

This was normally one of his favorite things to do, to take his time stretching and teasing until Merlin was half mad with desperation, but tonight he didn’t have the patience. The jealously had settled like a stone inside him, heavy and immovable.

He pulled his fingers out, delighting in Merlin’s whine as they went, and slicked his cock with the salve. Pushing Merlin’s thighs wide with his knees, he draped himself across Merlin’s back and pushed inside.

_Fuck_ it felt good. He should have spent more time, knew that Merlin was too tight and dry for this to be enjoyable for him, but he couldn’t help thrusting forward, spearing Merlin open almost painfully slowly.

Merlin hissed, back curling as his body sought an escape from the intrusion, so Gwaine flipped him onto his back and pressed him down, his thrusts coming rough and fast to compensate for the shallower depth. Merlin’s face was pinched with pain, but he didn’t hesitate to wrap his legs around Gwaine’s waist.

Even when it hurt, Merlin wanted _him._

The sense of victory rising in him was choking in its sweetness, dampened only by the sight of Merlin’s hand drifting toward his own cock. That ugly beast inside him whispered that Merlin could be thinking of anyone while he pleasured himself, and he snatched Merlin’s wrists in a vice like grip, pinning them above his head.

Merlin would come on his cock, or not at all.

His rhythm was sloppy, too fast to make this last a respectable amount of time, but he was lost to the sound of Merlin’s cries and the voice that told him he’d earned this. Merlin could kill him with less than a thought, but still he’d laid himself out on Gwaine’s bed and spread himself wide, offering all of himself to Gwaine and Gwaine alone. In this room, it was Gwaine who held power.

That was the thought that tipped him over the edge, his hips pressed flush against Merlin’s arse in what was probably the quickest, most unsatisfying orgasm of his life.

Nausea filled him before the high had even started to fade, his panting into Merlin’s neck taking on a sharp, jagged edge.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, voice hoarse with the storm of emotions brewing inside him. He pulled out gently, but not gently enough to keep Merlin from wincing as he did. For one horrifying moment, he expected to see blood running with his come.

There was no blood, he’d at least stretched him enough for that, but he could see the bite marks along Merlin’s chest that had cut skin, see the shape of his hands purpling around Merlin’s wrists. All the ways in which he’d wounded instead of pleased.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, ignoring the question in Merlin’s eyes by moving down to kiss each of the marks he’d left on Merlin’s chest, before sliding even lower.

Merlin hadn’t come on his cock, had in fact softened considerably on it, so Gwaine took him in his mouth and sucked him off with all the vigor his wrung out body could muster.

He wasn’t modest enough to deny that he was good at this. He knew how to swirl his tongue around the shaft without nicking him with his teeth, knew how to flutter his throat around the head, knew just the right amount of suction to drive him wild without veering into pain. Merlin let out a choked cry when Gwaine swallowed him down to the hilt fully hard, his fingertips running lightly over his sac.

He knew Merlin was close when he started to thrust, tiny movements he couldn’t quite suppress. It was the work of only a few minutes more before Merlin’s hips lifted entirely off the bed, head thrown back as he spilled down Gwaine’s throat.

Their breathing seemed very loud in the sudden stillness.

Gwaine still held Merlin in his mouth as he softened, head resting on Merlin’s thigh. He couldn’t bring himself to look up. It was easier to focus on this, on the wet slide of Merlin against his tongue and the bitter taste coating his mouth.

Merlin brought a hand to Gwaine’s cheek.

He was flushed down to his chest, hair damp with sweat, nothing but concern in his eyes when he asked, “Are you alright?”

Gwaine closed his eyes, ignoring Merlin’s full body shiver when he released him. Of course Merlin was worried about him. No sense of self preservation. It was Gwaine’s self-appointed job to be that sense for him, not to be the one taking advantage.

“Fine,” he said, knowing he didn’t sound it and knowing Merlin could tell. “Don’t know what came over me.”

That was a lie, but jealousy was an adversary he’d never had to battle before. If he was being tested, he’d already failed.

“Come up here,” Merlin said, pulling on his shoulders until Gwaine was resting against his chest. Gwaine didn’t feel worthy of being comforted, but he was as weak as he’d always been where Merlin was concerned.

He fell asleep with Merlin’s arms wrapped around him, as if nothing at all had changed.

* * *

Jealousy was a difficult thing to confront, but confront it he did. He’d only ever been skilled at lying to others, never to himself.

These were the things he knew:

He loved Merlin, more than he’d ever loved anyone or anything.

Few things terrified him more than the thought of losing him.

Merlin was a being made of magic, caught up in a destiny so grand in scale Gwaine could barely wrap his mind around it.

Gwaine was about as magical as a dirty handkerchief.

That was what it came down to, the magic. There were so many things in Merlin’s life that Gwaine wasn’t a part of, couldn’t be even if he tried. He’d always known that Merlin could do so much better than him, had known it from the very beginning, before the grand revelation and change in status and flood of marriage proposals that had come pouring in. But being able to put a face to that reality changed things.

When he compared himself to Freya, he couldn’t imagine a single scenario in which he came out on top.

* * *

The second time he saw Freya, her face appeared in the ale he was just about to drink, all her lovely features overlaid with a golden-brown sheen.

He threw the tankard half-way across the tavern in surprise.

“Shit!” he cried, half the occupants standing and pulling knives in alarm. His tankard cracked against the back of a man built like an ox, looking none too pleased at being soaked in what amounted to cheap, lukewarm piss water.

The third time he saw Freya was in a puddle in the dirt right after he was thrown out of the tavern.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Gwaine spared a moment to resent the fact that even in a mud puddle filled with shit and rubbish, she still looked beautiful.

“Not a problem, My Lady,” he said, letting his face drop back to the ground. A rock scraped against his forehead, and it seemed fitting that a tiny piece of what he was suffering inside should be visible on the outside. He dug his face in a bit harder. “How can I be of assistance?”

“You need to leave, quickly. That ale was poisoned.”

“What?” he asked, pushing himself up onto his forearms. “How do y—”

“Not now,” she cut him off, “Go. I’ll find you later.”

With that, her reflection vanished.

_Poison._ Gwaine was suddenly very aware that he was lying face down on the ground, had been for several minutes now, while someone who apparently wanted to kill him was lurking about. He scrambled to his feet, wishing that he’d at least slid a knife into his boot. Being a knight had made him soft. He was used to people _not_ attacking him in the streets these days.

Nothing stood out to him when he glanced around, no shadows lurking beyond the dirty windows of the tavern or faces peering his way from alleyways. With nothing to fight, he hurried back to the castle.

Not only was Freya more beautiful than he was and more magical than he was, now he owed her a life debt too.

Perfect.

* * *

An addendum to his ongoing list about Freya:

She was beautiful, magical, and _powerful._

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you who did it. I wasn’t paying enough attention to see.”

True to her word, she had found him later. If anyone walked into his chambers just then and saw him talking to the wash basin cradled in his lap, they’d probably think him mad. He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t.

“How did you know it was poison at all?”

She shrugged. A lock of her hair fell over her shoulder, perfectly smooth. Gwaine thought he ought to wash his soon.

“I always keep an eye on poison in my waters. I don’t always intervene though, I suppose I should find a way to do it more subtly.”

_My waters._ Apparently rivers and lakes and pitchers and dirty puddles all fell under her control. He was starting to understand the magnitude of this woman’s importance.

Everyone knew that the man who controlled access to water was the most powerful man around. Gwaine had a feeling that Freya could put every king in Albion in his place, if she ever wanted to.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling like a cad. As if thanks were enough, but what could he possibly offer to someone like her?

“Be careful, Sir Gwaine.” She looked at him with her big, sad, serious eyes, leaning forward in earnestness. “He loves you so. 

Oh. Well, that he could do.

* * *

In Gwaine’s very knowledgeable, completely unbiased opinion, his sex life had nosedived to the bottom of the ocean in the wake of The Incident. It didn’t help that it was entirely his fault.

Riddled with guilt and no small amount of fear every time he touched Merlin, he’d stopped penetrating him entirely. That alone wouldn’t have been much of a problem, they did it rarely enough that it wasn’t missed overly much, but he’d also taken to dedicating every second of their time together to Merlin’s pleasure.

The problem was that Merlin liked to give pleasure even more than Gwaine did, and having all the attention focused on himself led to a strange back and forth that ultimately left them both frustrated and unsatisfied.

It was a cycle he wished he knew how to break.

The night after Freya saved his life, he had his legs thrown over Merlin’s shoulders, Merlin’s cock sliding between his oil slicked thighs, low enough that he brushed against Gwaine’s own cock on every forward thrust. Gwaine was doing his best to focus more on keeping his thighs together than on the whisper faint friction urging him to thrust.

“Touch yourself.”

Merlin’s voice was low and earnest, eyes blown wide with pleasure as he watched every move Gwaine made. The smile he wore, little more than a quirk of the lips, was teasing.

Merlin made demands in bed so rarely that Gwaine normally fell over himself trying to fulfill them, wanting to be every one of Merlin’s carefully guarded fantasies brought to life, but now he could feel the guilt coiling serpent-like in his gut, edging out the arousal and making itself at home.

Couldn’t he have just one night where his own pleasure wasn’t mentioned at all?

Merlin sensed his hesitation, the smile falling from his face and his hips stuttering to a halt. He sat back on his heels, Gwaine’s legs falling bonelessly back to the mattress. He felt trapped, helpless, an insect pinned underneath a looking glass.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong now?” Merlin asked, so forlorn it was clear what he expected the answer to be, and Gwaine found he didn’t want to do this anymore.

He didn’t know how to fix this on his own, didn’t know how to twist himself into shapes worthy of Merlin’s affection, but he missed being able to talk to him as equals. As friends.

“I almost got poisoned yesterday.”

“You _what?_”

Merlin shifted from sadness to concern in an instant, his hands falling on Gwaine’s chest as if he could see evidence of it upon his skin. Gwaine grasped his wrists, stilling him.

“Love, it’s alright—”

“Why didn’t you _tell _me? I could have been looking, Gods, I should be testing your food—”

“Arthur’s already started a search—”

“Arthur has a million things to be doing, it should be me—”

“Freya saved my life!”

Merlin quieted, blinking in confusion.

“Freya warned me about it,” Gwaine continued, gentler now that he thought Merlin wouldn’t interrupt. “She’s keeping an eye out for me.”

Merlin let his head fall to Gwaine’s shoulder, and faintly he could hear him whispering _Thank you Freya_ where his lips were pressed against skin. What a sight they must make, sweaty and flushed and still hard where they were pressed together, Merlin bowed over him as if in supplication, and he was struck all of a sudden by what a farce this whole thing was. Slowly, he started to laugh.

Merlin raised his head, bouncing a bit with the movement of Gwaine’s stomach, and the sight only made him start laughing harder. Merlin’s brows drew together.

“What on Earth is so funny to you right now?”

“I’m trying to say that I was jealous,” he answered, and the memory of that feeling, so cloying he could barely breathe through it, sobered him a bit. “That’s what’s been bothering me; I was jealous of Freya. _Am _jealous of Freya.”

“Why?” Merlin asked baldly, sounding so honestly confused it was the only thing keeping Gwaine from taking offense. Honestly, that he should have to spell it out. For a man of the people, Merlin was remarkably bad at understanding them. Then again, when your troubles were matters of prophecy and death, the petty jealousies of the common folk probably seemed awfully small.

“Because she’s magical, and I’m…not.”

As he said it, he realized that wasn’t the whole of it. It was also the fact that he knew Merlin had loved her. He knew that people could love more than once, or else no widower or sundered lovers would ever go on to wed another, but somehow it was different to know it and to see proof of it. Merlin might never have taken a lover before Gwaine, but he had fallen in love. That was something Gwaine couldn’t say for himself.

“I didn’t know that mattered to you,” Merlin said, drawing back until he was sitting upright, straddling Gwaine’s thighs, and a flicker of annoyance went through Gwaine as he said it. Of course he didn’t. Merlin might have developed quite the nose for sniffing out treason and danger, but when it came to just about everything else he was as observant as a rock. Except that wasn’t fair. Gwaine himself hadn’t known it was bothering him until a few weeks ago, how was Merlin to know? “You have to know it doesn’t matter to me,” Merlin continued. “I love you. I’m not going to leave you because you’re not a sorcerer.”

“Never is a long time, Merlin,” Gwaine said, realizing too late that he’d stumbled upon the sore spot of Merlin’s immortality when Merlin drew back fully, looking hurt. Gwaine rose to follow him. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I just…” there really was no way to say this without making himself sound pathetic, was there? “I don’t know what I offer you.”

“Everything.”

If this were a ballad Merlin might have said it with a flutter of his eyelashes or a bashfulness to his face, maybe even a swoon, but he said it plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. In fact, he sounded a bit offended that Gwaine hadn’t figured this out for himself.

“Gwaine, I’m serious, I think I would have gone mad if it weren’t for you. I want you just—because you’re _you._”

“Elegantly put,” he teased, but he could feel himself start to melt, just a little. Maybe he was the ballad maiden after all.

Merlin tackled him, the breath rushing out of him as Merlin trailed kisses along his neck. “Can we put this behind us, please?” he mumbled, shifting until he was draped fully along Gwaine’s torso. “It’s been miserable.”

Gwaine let his hands stroke along Merlin’s back, drawing goose bumps where they went. “How can I make it up to you?” he asked, even though he knew he wasn’t ready to let this go. Not yet. There was one more thing he wanted to do.

But Merlin had started to wiggle his hips. “You can finish what you started, for one,” he said, and Gwaine decided it could wait.

* * *

“What can I do for you, Sir Gwaine?” Gaius asked, in the exact tone of voice he always used with Gwaine – unfailingly polite, but chilly in a way that was hard to define. Gwaine usually tried to stay out of his way. He caused enough problems when he put away a few too many tankards of ale, he didn’t need to add to the man’s burdens when he was sober too.

Also the fact that he was sleeping with his ward. That probably had something to do with it.

But he’d come here with a purpose, one that was worth a few minutes of conversation with the man who was essentially his father in law.

“I was hoping for access to some of your books, if that’s alright.”

“Certainly,” Gaius said, setting down his work and moving to stand by his shelves. “What do you need researched? I can report to you in several days if you wish.”

“No, uh…Call it expanding my education. I wanted to read them myself.”

There would always be things in Merlin’s life he didn’t fully understand, and in all likelihood he’d never be able to cast a spell.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
